


Just A Game

by lmontyy



Category: The Last of Us, Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Crossover, Elena Fisher - Freeform, Ellie - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Lesbian Character, Nathan Drake - Freeform, Spoilers for Uncharted (Video Games), TLOU, The Last of Us - Freeform, Useless Lesbians, Victor Sullivan - Freeform, also they suck at video games, dina - Freeform, ellie and dina find a ps3 with uncharted, ellie williams, so they bicker back and forth and play until 4am, the last of us 2, the last of us part 2 - Freeform, the last of us part ii, theyre both assholes to each other but they love it, tlou 2, uncharted - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmontyy/pseuds/lmontyy
Summary: While out on a supply run in Jackson City, Ellie and Dina accidentally stumble upon an old PS3 that just so happens to have Uncharted: Drake's Fortune downloaded on it. They decide to sneak it home, but with a little trial and error, they come to realize they're both really awful at video games.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 110





	Just A Game

**Author's Note:**

> This song is inspired by "Let Go" by Ark Patrol. The entire time I wrote about the city and their scavenging through the remains of the empty, overgrown city, it helped put together the imagery.

Jackson City was only a few miles out from the Jackson County community, a popular patrol spot for gathering supplies and medications – a frequent place of travel for many of the young patrol members. It was a hotspot for many pharmacies and shops full of supermarkets and corner stores that still had some supplies needed by the people of Jackson.

That day, that’s exactly where they were.

“Okay, here’s the plan.”

Holed up in an old warehouse office on the top floor just outside the city, Jesse, their patrol leader for the shift, brought out the old, enlarged foldable map from the world before the outbreak, one they recovered on a run long ago. It was visibly marked and split into each imaginary “district” Maria established years beforehand to stay organized and assist with the assembling of patrols.

Gathered around, Ellie stood beside Dina, noticeably close together – as they always were – along with their friends Darth, James, Lila, Trish, and Gavin. They all huddled around the map, watching as Jesse spread it out on the old, rickety conference table as he began to give instruction.

“We’re splitting into pairs,” he stated. “I’ll take James with me down to the stations, restock on ammo from the vaults. There’s a few places we haven’t searched yet. Darth and Lila, you guys can handle the stores on Brighton Street?” He looked to them and was met with nods of confirmation. “Just do a quick strip down that whole street. Should be blocked off from infected on the outer streets. Gavin and Trish, you guys can take up the three pharmacies in the Med District,” he pointed to all three on the map. “You got your maps, right?”

“Yessir,” Gavin responded lightheartedly, his overseas accent ringing with obedience.

“Good,” Jesse nodded with approval. “Just do a quick mark on your map to the ones I pointed out. Only take the essentials. We can always come back for them another day. The weight of your backpack is more important than a couple of extra bandages.”

“Yup,” he nodded curtly, throwing his other backpack strap around his shoulder.

With what looked like an expression of hesitation and discomfort, he turned to the remaining two girls, who, once again, stood too comfortably close for Jesse’s liking. “Okay, you two. You two can take the Conference District. Check through the offices, look for supplies, wiring, any working electronics and batteries. You know the drill; you’ve done it before. You guys can handle that?” His question was almost antagonizing and it rung in Ellie’s ears.

“We got it,” Dina answered in a defiant monotone. Reaching an arm out and tugging gently on a muscular arm on the girl beside her, Ellie let her pull her toward the door leading out.

Jesse called after them, as well as announcing it to the rest of the table as they collected their things to head out. “Be back here by sundown! No later!”

Ellie didn’t miss the roll of the shorter girl’s eyes beside her as she slammed the door behind them. Quietly making for the front door and starting off carefully for the horses that were mounted strategically against the inner fences by the garage, they finally took off and away from everyone else, embracing the company of just the two of them.

“Finally,” Dina sighed with relief, wrapping her arms and legs tightly around the taller girl in control of the horse on the saddle in front of her.

Their relationship was always on the secret side. If you took one look at them, as most of their friends did and were well aware, it wasn’t hard to tell of the underlying romance between the two girls – a romance that went unlabeled in the eyes of the public, but intimate and personal behind closed doors with just the two of them hiding behind it. Ellie liked keeping her business out of the public eye, and surprisingly, Dina didn’t seem to have much of a problem obliging and respecting that.

“Getting tired of the old boyfriend there?” Ellie shot back with a teasing glance to her side, catching the amused smirk in response as the shorter girl lifted her head to retaliate.

“I’ve _been_ tired of him, yeah,” Dina retorted, the smile never leaving her face as she squeezed around Ellie tighter and let her head fall against the nape of her neck, resting in feather-soft hair that she knew smelled of coconut and strawberries.

Ellie couldn’t help herself. “Too bossy for your liking?”

“Watch it, Williams,” Dina challenged playfully, pressing a sweet kiss into the skin of her neck through her hair. “You can be bossy, too, smartass.”

“Oh, can I?”

“Don’t make me wipe that stupid smile off your face, Freckles.”

“You like it when I’m bossy.” Ellie was cocky in her answer which received a glare to the back of her head.

“Maybe.”

The Conference District was full of neatly placed, tall buildings that reached stories high into the clear blue sky, and was a frequent place of interest due to the amount of technology and office supplies located within. Batteries and cables were absolutely treasured in Jackson County, as they welcomed anything that could provide them with stronger radios, stronger electricity, stronger cable for things like TV, and whatever they could get to assist at the plant and power their electric fence. That was Ellie and Dina’s job that day.

“This looks like a good place to start,” Dina noted, looking up at the first skyscraper they saw on the street corner, involuntarily tightening her arm grip around Ellie’s waist as she took in the sheer height of the building before her. While Ellie knew Dina was practically fearless, and that next to nothing shook her, she also knew Dina had a weak spot for the heights of the city buildings. She could climb the tallest mountains in Jackson County, travel the farthest up on the hill and admire the view on the way down, but something about Jackson City’s buildings got deep under her skin with fear.

The buildings themselves were taller than anything – much like the ones she’d seen in Boston, Pittsburg, and Salt Lake City. They towered over them; and Ellie could only imagine the horror of what it would like if one of those buildings tipped just a little too far on its side… much like a familiar one she’d scaled in Boston all those years ago with Joel and…

Plants and growth swallowed the metal and glass whole, overrunning the gray reflection with a beautiful array of green – all different shades and all different lengths – and she was more than happy taking in the sights of the silent city. Infected had been long gone; cleared from the streets many runs before, if they hadn’t already trailed off on their own in search of people or any remaining civilization to manifest and destroy. The buildings that towered miles high into the sky were a cold, desolate reminder of the life they never knew, but it almost intrigued Ellie more to explore them from the inside out. She knew Dina was the same way, and that was what excited her more to be out on patrol with her. They liked taking their time indulging in vacant luxuries that were completely foreign to them. Embracing the unknown with Dina was something Ellie could get used to, and something she was sure she could never get sick of.

“We’ve never been to this side, have we?” Ellie noticed the unfamiliar positioning of the buildings and the foreign signs that hung in rusted off letters next to arrays of seating that sat vacant for God knows how many years.

“I don’t think so…” Dina murmured, taking in the sight for herself. “We went to Holiday Street and Mercer last time, I think.”

“Well, what street is this?” Ellie asked, still glancing around at the tops of the skyscrapers, as if the answers were held there.

“Not sure… Colorado, maybe?”

“No, no way,” Ellie disputed. “Colorado is back by the Med District.”

Dina hummed with agreement. “Oh, no, you’re right.” Noticing a particular sign that hung from what was once an old, plentiful bakery, she pointed it out while securing a grip on Ellie’s shoulder with her other hand. “Look, over there.” Ellie turned to squint her eyes at the distance to read it, but Dina had already deciphered it. “‘Garden Ave Café.’” She read aloud.

“Here, grab the map out of the last pocket in my bag,” The auburn-haired girl ordered gently, with Dina quickly obliging and handing it up to her. Giving it a quick skim, she hummed. “Yeah, that seems right,” Ellie pointed to the street corner they’d passed, holding it over her shoulder to show her before passing it back to her to give her a better look. “We just got off of Central. This is the place Jesse wants us.”

“Alrighty then,” Dina took a deep breath as she prepared herself for their scavenging adventure while Ellie found a good spot under an old restaurant awning to put their horse.

Hopping off and securing the bag around her shoulders, Ellie lifted a hand up to help Dina down to the floor beside her. “Ready, miss?”

“You know it,” Dina smiled down at the gracefully shy girl below her before taking her strong hand and jumping down onto the concrete. Pressing a kiss to ger cheek in thanks, she stepped forward with a smile and Ellie watched her take in the city streets.

A smile found its way across her lips as she secured their horse to one of the beams keeping the canopy up, and walked forward to catch up with her.

***

Minutes turned into hours of searching through the tall buildings, and by the second one, both girls wanted nothing more than to stop or take a break. As much as she loved exploring with Dina, she only really found herself really enjoying it when they didn’t have an objective. Being told to scavenge took the fun out of it for Ellie.

“I’m hungry,” Dina whined playfully from the bathroom, rummaging through the cabinets while Ellie checked the undersides and shelves in the office desks.

“I know, me too,” Ellie responded with a smile as she continued to dig past useless old books of busywork and graphs. “We’ll take a break soon. Let’s just get through this last building and maybe we can eat some of the chips I brought.”

An excited gasp sounded from the bathroom that was out of sight. “Ooh, what kind of chips did you get?”

“None of your damn business,” Ellie retorted with amusement, a teasing tone dripping from her lips. “You’ll see later when we finally sit down.”

“You’re no fun.”

They hadn’t checked the second floor before they headed right up to the third-floor offices, following the directory in the building lobby. The floor below them was an office lobby with a couple of other offices and conference rooms, and a front desk with a waiting room. It was more resourceful to go up the stairs into the actual office space to find their supplies.

Finally, when they cleared the second floor, they stumbled upon a closed back closet near the opposite end of the office space, one they noticed to still be closed before they headed out the door and back down the stairs.

“Did you check that?” Ellie asked as she noticed the closed wooden door across the room, pointing a finger at it from her waist side, prompting Dina to turn and look at it.

“No, I thought you were gonna check it.”

Ellie rolled her eyes with a smile, adjusting her backpack as she started for the door. “I’ll go get it, then.”

With a smile in return, this one of feigned innocence, Dina’s words slyly rolled off her tongue. “Thank you, baby.”

The taller girl rolled her eyes again, out of view from the girl waiting by the door. When she tried to turn the handle, she was met with nothing but resistance. Taking a step back, she took her foot to the locked door, kicking at the handle and knocking it clean off with a heavy boot. The door creaked open slightly from the force, and Ellie regained herself on her feet.

She heard a cat whistle of encouragement from the girl behind her. “Phew, do that again. Please, ma’am, that was so very attractive.”

Ellie turned her upper body around to meet wandering eyes and a smirk with an unamused deadpan before turning around and taking a step through the door.

She thought nothing of It – she took a look around the shelves completely unsuspecting of the unstable, warped wood floor beneath the carpet. When she took another step in, that’s when she heard the loudest crack of breaking wood she’d ever heard in her life.

Finally, as the floor cracked below her, sending her plunging and grabbing for the door in a panic, she crashed down onto the floor as gravity sucked her into the hole her weight caused against the rotted and warped wood.

“Oh, shit!” She shouted in fright, her grip only holding for so long on the broken floor that collapsed around her.

She heard the panicked rush of footsteps and a call of her name as Dina must’ve sprinted to catch her. By the time she reached her, she had already been plunging down into the unknown below her, landing hard against what felt like a ragged old carpet and surrounded by the debris of the floor above her.

Stunned, she painfully brought herself to a sitting position, her body sore from the intense impact she made against the ground of the story below her. When she came to, a hand gripping her head as she finally processed the fall, she found herself in a room with a table that was thrown off to the side – that would’ve broken her fall if it had been set up properly – and chairs scattered throughout. Off to the side, a small mini-kitchen with what she could see was a fridge and a sink, but from her angle, there was most likely more.

Above her, the terrified voice of Dina broke her from her look around the room. “Holy shit… Ellie!” The dust from the old floor fogged up the giant hole that had sent Ellie plummeting to the floor below. From how scared Dina sounded, Ellie figured that she couldn’t see her. “Ellie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Ellie’s voice strained, intermixed with a groan, as she slowly pulled her aching body to her feet. “Wood was all fucked up; it just broke right out from under me.”

“Shit… are you hurt?” Dina’s voice was easier now, but still plagued with anxiety.

“Not really,” Ellie looked up as the dust began to clear and she was met with the concerned face of Dina looking down at her, the same one that tenderized with relief as she made eye contact with the girl beneath her. “Just took a hard fall.”

“Okay, I’m coming down,” Dina called, throwing her legs through the break in the ground.

“Be careful.”

Ellie watched patiently at the bottom to catch Dina, and when she finally braced herself and hopped down, Ellie was waiting with her arms out. Landing in the arms of the taller girl, Dina only smiled at her when she realized how ready was for Ellie to catch her. Ellie couldn’t get enough of how soft Dina got at the smallest displays of care and affection such as those, the same ones she thought of so carelessly and so instinctually – it was second nature to look after Dina and she knew the girl in question loved it.

They were finally able to take in the entire scene around them. Peeking into the doorway of what she thought was a kitchen, her suspicions were confirmed when she was met with a small break room kitchen, and realized she’d fallen right into the break room’s eating area.

“It’s a break room,” Ellie stated as she turned her attention back to the girl who had climbed over the rubble of the ceiling above her and made her way into a different room just out of Ellie’s view.

“Yeah, no kidding,” she called. “Come take a look at this.”

Hurrying over the pile of wood, bricks, and plaster that collected in the center of the eating area, she headed past the doorframe and into the room Dina had called her over to. In the room, there were two couches, a coffee table that was tilted and off-center, and an old, busted up TV with a black box in the cubby of the stand.

Dina’s curiosity never faltered, and Ellie watched her approach the cubbyhole, reaching in to take a closer look at it. When she tried to remove it, she was met with resistance from wires that had been plugged into the old TV and the wall.

“What is it?” Ellie asked, taking steps forward to get a look at it herself, both girls careful not to tug too hard and rip it from the wall.

“Looks like an old gaming system?” Dina suggested, turning it over and reading the spaced out, bolded words that went across the center of the console. “PlayStation 3…”

Reaching down into the cubby again while Dina continued to examine the box, she was met with a strange looking holdable remote, with four symbols – an X, an O, a triangle, and a square – on the right side, two joysticks, three center buttons, and a pad of up, down, left, and right. There were four buttons on the top and back of the controller, two on each side. It read “Sony” across the top of the center section of the remote.

“Found the controller,” Ellie informed, turning it all around and examining it further.

“This is crazy,” Dina marveled at the electronic in her hands. “I wonder if it still works.”

“Hell, if I know,” Ellie murmured. When she took another look at the TV, disappointment flooded her. “Not like we could test it out… the damn TV’s fucked.”

When she turned back to the smaller girl, she was met with a devilish face. Automatically, Ellie knew that something was scheming up in that devious mind of hers.

“Uh oh…” she sighed.

Dina couldn’t fight the laugh that erupted with her words. “Hear me out,” she pleaded playfully, taking another look at where the cords were attached. “What if we take it with us? You know… ditch some of the useless shit and throw it one of our bags?”

Taking her free hand and pushing her head back with a sigh, she let her other arm drop as she processed the idiotic, yet genius, plan. “You’re fucking crazy. We can’t do that.”

“Oh, come on,” That childish, whiny tone took over as Ellie put the remote down and turned away. Dina placed the console down to run behind her in an attempt to desperately try and convince her. “Who’s gonna know?”

“Jesse, when we come back with one backpack of supplies and the other with a fucking useless box that might not even work.”

With a groan of exasperation, Ellie turned just in time to meet an eye roll from Dina at the mention of her ex-boyfriend’s name. “Who gives a shit? This isn’t security. It’s not like he has to check our fucking bags to make sure we aren’t smuggling contraband into Jackson. We can tell him we got unlucky and didn’t get much, and that’s it.”

“Dina, that’s a stupid idea,” Ellie sighed, her arms drooped down, only to be brought up to make gestures as she continued to talk. “We don’t even know if it works. Jesse will kill us and we need some of these supplies.”

“Okay, so we pack my bag a little extra with all the important stuff,” Dina suggested with a hopeful shift in her tone.

“Oh, okay, so leave me with to carry the fucking thing?” Failing to fight a grin, Dina quickly reciprocated it, finding amusement in Ellie’s question.

“Exactly.”

“You’re nuts,” Ellie dismissed after a brief pause, but then took a second to think again. She couldn’t resist the excitement Dina displayed, and the passion that shone as she concocted an entire plan to bring it home for them to try. With a sigh of defeat at her own thoughts, Ellie finally gave in.

She met Dina’s hopeful eyes and looked away with a conquered smile.

“Fine.”

With a pump of her fist to the air, Dina raced back to unplug the console from its wires. Falling to her knees, she quickly reached in to start removing everything. Ellie came following quickly with hurried protests.

“Wait, wait, hold on, Jesus Christ,” she urged, leaning down to help her with the wires. “Keep an eye out for which wire goes where.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dina teased, leaning up slightly on her knees to kiss the cheek of the girl who was bent over, peering into the cubby, trying to help. “You’re the best.”

“I know I am.”

***

“How do you set this damn thing up?”

Dina’s frustrated complaint sounded from the living room, amusing Ellie who gathered their snacks in two bowls – one filled with popcorn and the other with Dina’s favorite potato chips. With a chuckle to herself, she emerged from the kitchen to witness the commotion.

“Could you be a little more patient, maybe?” She teased, leaning on the doorframe from the kitchen.

“Could you fuck off, Williams?” Dina shot back; her face serious but her tone dripping with lightheartedness. “Where does this wire go?” She groaned irritably as she stared at each cord with disdain.

“Sorry, I would help, but I’m too busy fucking off,” Ellie retorted with a grin and headed back into the kitchen, prompting Dina to direct a curse under her breath at Ellie.

Getting them each a fresh bottle of water from the fridge, she shoved them under her arms and held a bowl in each hand, reappearing at the doorframe, only this time to walk past it and into the living room to meet her agitated girlfriend still fumbling with cords. Setting down the bowls, she rushed over to help, with a playful glare from Dina as she took the cords into her hands and slowly deciphered each ‘HDMI’ cord and putting them each into their designated inputs. She could feel Dina watching her – her eyes shifting back and forth from the console to Ellie’s face.

“There,” Ellie huffed, finally concluding her conquest of cords. “I think I got it now.”

An excited hum sounded from behind her and when she turned, she was met with an enthusiastic Dina tossing herself down on the couch with the controller in her hand. Throwing a blanket over her lap, she eagerly patted the cushion at her side, motioning to Ellie to come sit beside her.

With a playful, sweet roll of her eyes and an irresistible smile, Ellie clicked the button on the TV to turn it on and headed over to sit beside Dina. Holding her arm out, Dina immediately took it as a sign to move forward, but quickly leaned back and buried her body into Ellie’s arm, which sat around her shoulders. 

It started up slowly, scaring both girls into thinking it was broken. But when the sound played and it showed the PS3 label across the screen, both of them celebrated with excited cheers.

“Jeez,” Dina breathed out, overwhelmed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Laughing, Ellie snatched the controller from her, bringing it over to the hand that hung off of Dina’s shoulder and using it at the side of Dina’s face as she comfortably cuddled in closer to Ellie.

There were many different categories to choose from, but when she found her way to the games section, she saw something that caught her eye immediately. One game was installed into the ancient, working device.

“Uncharted?” Ellie read with a perplexed tone and a squint of her eyes.

“Is that the game?”

“Yeah, apparently,” Ellie answered Dina’s gentle question with a hum of confusion. “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.”

“Man, I haven’t played a video game in years…” Dina marveled with wide, curious eyes as she eyed the thumbnail of the game that was magnified as Ellie hovered over it.

Shooting her a look of amusement and disbelief, Ellie smiled as she asked. “When have you ever played a video game before?”

“Once, a long time ago,” Dina’s voice was exaggerated, but profoundly adorable. “We were out on a hunting patrol years ago… one of the training ones. And Rob was taking me, Jesse, Michael, and a couple of other kids from the group at the time, and we came across a cabin with a TV and a much older system than this one, according to Rob, and we sat there and played it for hours and hours. They had to radio us back home. Luckily, we caught a couple of rabbits.” She said it with such a look of smug pride.

“Wow, a couple of rabbits?” Ellie feigned astonishment and her voice was completely infused with sarcasm. “I bet you fed everyone that night.”

Dina playfully – but painfully – nudged her, causing a strained exhale to fall past Ellie’s lips as she clicked on the game and loaded it up, the ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’ title screen shining into their semi-lit living room which turned darker by the minute as the sun shrunk past the tall spruce trees little by little.

When they selected ‘new game’ and the easiest difficulty, it brought them into the opening cutscene.

There was a quote, and then it opened with two characters on a boat, with a supposed treasure that they unearthed. The girl had a camera and the guy was talking to her about a deal they made. They got into a brief argument about a contract, before men on boats pulled up to theirs and began shooting at them.

Ellie was thrown right into it and didn’t realize the gameplay had actually started before bullets were flying in her character’s direction and she scrambled around for cover. All the while, Dina sat in the background asking distracting and unhelpful questions.

“Wait… so his name is Drake?” Her perplexed response was entertaining against Ellie, who sat upright and panicked, moving the controller around with her arms as she tousled to get her wits together and figure out how to play.

“No, Dina,” she tried to force out with as much patience as she could muster as she continued to try and hold frantic concentration into the screen. “She called him _Mr. Drake_ – it’s his last name.”

“Oh.”

After a long, tumultuous battle of missing bullets, taking bullets, and not knowing the controls, Ellie huffed out all the breath she’d been holding from her concentration. She leaned back as another cutscene took over, hardly paying attention and coming down from the stress she’d felt the entire time she played.

“Man. You suck at this.”

It took all of Ellie’s patience and strength not to bonk Dina upside the head.

“I what?” She turned, glaring daggers into her girlfriend who only looked at her, raised her eyebrows, and repeated her statement with a firmer voice.

“You suck at this.”

Her blood boiled with embarrassment at Dina’s remark, and with a childish pout, she tossed the controller over to her girlfriend.

“Fine,” her tone was poisoned with spite. “If I’m so bad? _You_ can play.”

Dina rolled her eyes and snatched the controller from her with an attitude. “I’m gonna kick your ass. Just watch.”

Taking her sweet time to explore the terrain of the game around her, both girls couldn’t help but marvel at the graphics. They were fairly amazing, and one of the best either of them had ever seen.

“This looks like real life,” Ellie awed in wonder.

“Yeah, I know, this is insane.”

The trees in the game looked borderline real, compared to the ones she’d seen on her journeys to Jackson – they were beautifully designed. The lighting made them just as gorgeous, and that seemed to be Dina’s main attraction. Every so often as they explored the jungle, Dina would turn to look right into the sun and give a quick comment like:

“Ellie, look! Look how cool the sun is!”

And with a sigh, Ellie would respond in a monotone, though trying her best to fight the amusement of the girl beside her. “Yes, Dina, I see the sun.”

They stumbled into an ancient temple, and after finding a bunch of symbols in a book that Mr. Drake – who they had learned was named Nate – recognized from somewhere unknown to them. Again, Dina took her time to explore just as she did in the jungle beforehand.

All of a sudden, as they were exiting the temple, the roof started to collapse above their heads, and the concerned voice of their explorer friend and confidante, Sully, sounded from behind the rocks. _“Uh, Nate… Get out of there – now!”_

“Oh, shit,” Dina’s panicked voice prompted Ellie to turn to her with utmost amusement. Her face was widened with shock, and the sound of the game’s pause menu had Ellie reeling with laughter.

“What’d you pause it for?” Ellie’s laugh ignited the heat on Dina’s face.

Dina turned to glare daggers into the laughing girl. “Because I don’t know what to do, dickhead!”

“No,” Ellie protested with merriment, that only seemed to embarrass, and in turn, infuriate, Dina more. “You got scared, so you paused it.” Her correction was snarky and aggravating.

“Shut up, asshole,” Dina cursed, a shallow attempt to hand her the controller shut down by another barrage of laughter. “You can play then.”

“Absolutely not, missy,” Ellie refused. “You wanted to play so badly, you can do it.”

With a grumble of defeat, Dina’s pouting face turned back to the TV screen with the most evident reluctance hidden behind dark eyes. With a deep breath, she unpaused the game, and found her finger on the button to sprint, the camera angle twisting and turning as the rocks continued to fall, one after the other, behind her.

Ellie couldn’t help the snarky, provoking remark that followed past her lips, a subconscious attempt to disrupt her concentration and push Dina to the limit with her teasing. “Besides, you’re supposed to be kicking my ass. You should do a better job.” Ellie quietly swallowed the amused guilt that followed her statement.

Only a stoic glare was shot in her direction, but amazingly, Dina continued on playing, pulling the run off without a hitch. She reached the end of the running scene and ended up back again with Sully on the other side.

“Good job, babe,” There was a hint of deception and goading behind her words. “I knew you could do it.”

“Kiss my ass, Williams.”

Ellie erupted into laughter again at her girlfriend’s malicious response to her teasing, and her failure to even spare a glance in her direction as her concentration on the TV only grew. She leaned forward with the controller, farther from Ellie, whose arm was still outstretched against the couch.

“You’re so vicious.”

Dina just scoffed at her response. But Ellie knew it was all in good fun, and that Dina’s resilience was only just a façade she wore to cover her embarrassment – and amusement – at the situation and the things that Ellie said.

After the boulder escape, Nate and Sully realize that El Dorado, a location they had been looking for, was actually a “Golden Man” – a golden statue – the entire time. Dina and Ellie sat watching in captivation as the story began to unfold before them, Dina finally inching her way back under Ellie’s arm – Ellie knew she couldn’t resist the comfort.

They continued to play and get further into the story, resulting in a cut scene that ended with Sully being shot in the chest and Nate escaping from the group of rivaling treasure hunters that found the two in the jungle. It left both of them in shock, giving each other a sorrowful look as if they hadn’t been fighting with each other no more than a few minutes ago.

After Nate escaped from them, he ran back into Elena, the journalist that Nate and Sully previously abandoned, as she greeted him with a punch across the face. When the gunman approached, running past the rock he and Elena stood behind, he pushed her up against the rock with his body to avoid being spotted, resulting in a surprised but promiscuous look written across Elena’s face.

“They’re totally gonna fuck.”

Dina’s interruption of the cutscene surprised Ellie, but had her laughing again.

“Oh, yeah, for sure.”

The two girls were quick to move past that subject, establishing for certain that they would be romantically involved before going right back to the captivating cutscene.

For hours on end, back and forth with the remote, the girls began to play nice with each other and continued into the game. Multiple fight scenes, gunfights, stealth, and more story became unveiled to them as they played far into the night.

At one point, while Ellie played an infuriating section in the game, resulting in multiple deaths and restarts, Dina fell asleep on Ellie’s shoulder. When she took a glance over at the clock since the first time they started playing, she read ‘3:46’.

_Holy shit,_ Ellie thought in her head, in complete disbelief at the time written across the clock. Immediately pausing and saving the game, she closed out of it and quietly turned off the PS3, reaching over ever so gently to turn off the TV that made a soft clicking sound as it powered off. Dina barely stirred awake when Ellie stood, supporting her head in the comfortable position she’d been laying in, and lifting her from the shoulders and with an arm hooked underneath her knees.

Groaning in response, the grumble completely riddled with exhaustion, Dina slowly wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s strong shoulder as she carried her up the stairs and to the room at the end of the hall. Placing her down on the bed, she brought the covers right up to her chin, before taking off her shirt to reveal a tank top and sliding into bed beside her.

“Ellie?” Dina whispered, her name slurred with fatigue.

“Yes, love?” Ellie whispered back, reaching over to bring the smaller girl closer to her body and hold her.

“Can we play again tomorrow?” She asked, her voice as soft and as innocent as a child’s, prompting a large smile on the taller girl’s face.

“Sure, babe, we can play some more tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> This is another of the Tumblr requests I received for these two.
> 
> My tumblr handle is @lmontyy, and I take any and all requests, (so long as they're not unreasonable or crazy!) but I'm very easygoing when it comes to writing, and do enjoy writing for others. Any and all questions or inquiries may be directed to my inbox here or on tumblr. :)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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